Broken Wings
by Charbonne
Summary: Five hundred years before the events in Final Fantasy IX, Garland tried to make Gaia into Terra by force, but failed. The story behind what really happened... Rated PG13 for mild swearing.


Great, not another fic for me to write and forget about. Oh, well, I already have this whole one planned out, so I'll probably actually finish this one… Well, I got this idea from playing through the game for the thousandth time and realizing that they never explain what happened five hundred years in the past of the game… And thus, a new fic was born. I was hoping to tie Weathered into this somehow, but because I wrote this before I actually finish Weathered, I guess it will spoil a couple of things. All this fic will do is tell the story of how Garland failed the first time.

Ye Olde Disclaimer: I doth not owneth Final Fantasy Nine. 'Tis owned by Squaresoft.

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Broken Wings

Cool breeze and autumn leaves,

Slow motion daylight,

A lone pair of watchful eyes,

Oversee the living,

Feel the presence all around,

A tortured soul,

A wound unhealing,

No regrets or promises,

The past is gone,

But you can still be free,

If time will set you free…

Savage Garden, You Can Still Be Free

Hello. My name is Hajime Buki. I guess, since I'm the one that is writing this journal, I would have to start out by introducing myself. I never would have done this, except that one of my friends suggested I write this. Therefore, here I am. I have never thought that someone's thoughts could be summed up into one single book, but I have heard that other people's stories have been written like this. Just by starting out as a journal. I have dark bluish-black hair and light blue eyes. I have a younger brother, named Teki, who is at least one year younger than me. He had silver hair and silver eyes and is a bit taller than me. All of my other siblings have been destroyed. Odd, once you think about it, that I can say that without remorse. I wasn't born in the conventional Gaian way, which would include parents and family. No, I would never claim the man that created me as a father, and never have I addressed him as such. I don't think that Garland would approve, anyway. I am a summoner, first one created, and unlike the genomes that populate Bran Bal, I have a soul. I was created as a living weapon, and used to be hell bent on destroying Gaia itself, had it not been for my friends. They never knew about me until just recently, you see, and for them, it was probably very hard for them not to destroy me.

I should start at the beginning. As far back as I can remember, actually. I am not a native Gaian, and to be quite honest, I am an enemy of this planet. I was created to destroy Gaia and its inhabitants, using my powers of summoning. All of the summoners that have been created were made for that specific purpose. I can remember the day that Garland created me exactly, for it was then that I had so many new experiences at once. You see I was created just six years ago, but to the Gaians, I appear eighteen. How Garland explained it was that I age faster than the genomes and when I finally reach age four, the aging process would slow down to that of the genomes. It depressed me that I would have a shorter life than them, but I learned something else that day I never knew. I had been created with a special thing that day, and at first it was a mistake. However, when Garland realized that he could have me and my people change tactics and reason out battle plans, he changed his mind about taking my soul and instead gave me special powers.

The power to use Eidolons. The ability to summon powerful creatures to do outrageously powerful attacks to destroy my enemies. To use the creatures that Garland created himself. I was trained to kill without a second thought about who or what I was actually killing. All it meant was that Garland was one step closer to making Gaia into Terra. 

* * *

Being raised on Terra was an… interesting time for me. I never played like Gaian children do. I had to study, train, and prepare for the day that I would become what Garland called his 'Angels of Death.' Interesting term, if you ask me. I have never seen why he insisted on calling us that now, but to tell you the truth, I would have rather he called us tools instead of angels. Angels are pure and peaceful, even if they happened to call themselves death. We were far from being peaceful, and we couldn't call ourselves pure. Teki and I used to laugh, though. Even though we were both summoners, we were trained in different things. I was trained in the healing arts of white magic, while he instead became a practitioner of black magic. Even though we didn't see each other much, we used to meet on our down time to talk. We used to make up what we would do when the rest of Terra came awake. I of course would be a world-renowned healer, and Teki would kid around and claim that he would become the next ruler of Terra.

We both knew it was useless to think that, however, for when Terra's souls were reawakened, we would no longer me needed, and our bodies would become hosts for the new souls that would enter them. They were cheery thoughts, however unrealistic they were. Sometimes we would have to remind ourselves that we had a limited amount of time in the universe, and, like fairy tales, they were just stories. They would never come true. However, my brother would smile and say that one day, they would. 

* * *

It would be a year later that our training would end. We both were past childhood, as well as twenty-eight other summoners. I looked around a lot that day, trying to imprint everything that I saw into my mind. My last day, on the one planet that I could call home, I thought. I had smiled a lot that day, I remember. Saying goodbye to the genomes that were very much unaware about what was going to occur. Soulless, I thought miserably. All of them. I tried to remember all the names that me and Teki had named them, but I could only remember one. Nino. A small genome that, unlike the rest, seemed more aware than the others. He would speak to me on occasion, and it seemed that he considered me to be his big sister of sorts. I sighed. He was not among the genomes present. I turned toward Teki to tell him to hold on, that I was going to say goodbye to Nino, but my brother shook his head. He couldn't hold Garland up for whatever reason. I felt tears burn under my eyelids. The only genome that was aware and I couldn't say farewell to him. 

I shut my eyes, not wanting to see those soulless eyes of the genomes. Then I felt a tug on my abdomen, like someone was pulling on my middle. It lurched and tugged, until I felt solid ground beneath my feet. Then I fell to the ground, regurgitating everything that was in my stomach. My indigo hair hung in my face, blocking my view of everything except for the ground before me. It was covered with what looked like green hair, but the thickness and texture was all wrong. My first experience with grass. I stared at it for what seemed like hours before a noise brought me to attention. 

Teki was holding his sides, trying to contain his laughter. "What?" I asked, wiping my mouth off with my sleeve. I tried not to look at the mess I left on the ground. Instead I looked around. It seemed like the entire planet was green, except for the sky, which was an amazingly rich blue. Lighter than my own hair, it stretched from one horizon to the other, with only wispy white clouds to break it. The sea of green was surprisingly broken up with the same blue, a stream winding off beside us. The other color that I could see was slate gray, rising up sharply as a mountain and seeming to reach the sky. I looked around for what seemed like an eternity before I felt a light touch on my shoulder. 

"We need to get going," Teki said quietly. He must have been aware of the way I was looking around, for he too was gazing about with longing. "We have to reach Alexandria by nightfall."

I nodded. Garland had given us a map to find our way around, and it even noted the location of where everyone had been dropped off at. He had split us into twos and had told us where everyone would go. "Hey, was there anyone else supposed to hit Alexandria besides us?" I asked. There seemed to be an extra dot on the map.

"Hajime, you're probably reading the map wrong," he said as he took the map from me. He then did a double take as he realized what I meant. There was an extra dot, not near Alexandria like ours was, but inside it. Whoever it was, we had to help the person get to his appointed place. "There must be some kind of mistake."

"I don't think so," I said nervously. "Maybe someone else got teleported by mistake…?"

He looked at me then. His silver eyes locked immediately with my own, and suddenly we both knew it could be only one person. 

"No, he wouldn't. I mean, Nino is a smart genome. He wouldn't have been near us when we teleported…" I started nervously, then stopped. I didn't think for a second that Nino would have been interested in the fact that all the summoners had congregated in one spot, and that it had seemed very important. Now I realized it. I mentally kicked myself. How could I be suck a baka?

I turned away from Teki. "We have to get him. He shouldn't be here."

"I know," he said. "Heck, if we hadn't been so friendly to him, maybe he wouldn't be here."

I nodded and we both set off for Alexandria.

* * *

I looked around. Alexandria seemed to consist of thatch houses and shops, and the main thing that dominated the view was a gigantic stone building. We had arrived there by nearly dusk, and we had to find Nino fast. Unfortunately for us, Alexandria seemed strange compared to Bran Bal. There were several different new things for us to see. Teki had to almost drag me away from a small stand that seemed to contain small brown things that the shopkeeper called buns. I in turn dragged him away from a shop that contained weapons, but not before I ogled myself. Evidently Gaia wasn't without its enemies.

We couldn't find him that day, so we decided to try to find a place to sleep. Teki said that we would find him better if we had some rest, but I just wanted to find him. Teki had to drag me to the inn, and even though I protested, he ignored me. The innkeeper looked at us for a long moment before giving us a room. Teki sank into his bed gratefully, then gave me a strange look. "All right, I know you're worried, but could you at least get some sleep?"

"No, I can't. I'm worried. He may be as old as us, but he wasn't trained like us. What if he gets into trouble and gets hurt, or worse, killed? I almost felt like crying. "How can you be so cold?"

He shot me a look that chilled me. "Maybe I'm different," he stated quietly.

"That's not true, and you know it!" I snapped. "Jeez, how can you joke like that?"

He shrugged and turned toward the wall. "Fine, if you're so worried, Hajime, go look for him yourself."

"Maybe I will!" I snapped. I then turned on my heel and headed straight for the door.

* * *

Alright, so maybe going out into town in the middle of the night wasn't smart back then, but I was severely worried. Nino shouldn't have come here, I kept thinking over and over. He's too young. I didn't realize where I was going until I noticed the houses were getting shabbier around me. I turned around, but didn't recognize where I was. Great, I thought, now I'm lost now. 

Then I heard sniffling coming from one of the houses to my right. It sounded like Nino, but I couldn't be sure. All I knew was that the kid I was hearing was crying softly, probably hurt. My heart pounding, I rushed to the door of the house. What I failed to notice, however was that there had been several men following me ever since I had entered this portion of town. I knocked politely, but then smelled something horrible. I had never encountered alcohol before, so I didn't know that there was a drunk behind me. He covered my mouth with a dirty hand, and when I tried to bite down on it, someone behind me cuffed me sharply on the head. 

Spots swam in my vision, and as I struggled to clear it, they dragged me into the house. From the looks of it, they never seemed to clean it. The smell of human excretion filled my nostrils and I gagged. There was no flooring, only dirt, and that was covered with dirty straw. Along the walls were cages with the most bizarre creatures. I noted a fat white creature with a long tongue, a strange creature that resembled a rat, and what appeared to be a furry-tailed boy. Something about the boy reminded me of someone, but before I could get a closer look, the grubby man threw me into another cage.

"Hey, Wedge, that one's a cutie. If she didn't have a horn, I would have thought she was human." One of the men laughed. He was a bit taller than the one that had caught me, and I noticed that this one had lighter hair. Not nearly as light as Teki's, I reminded myself.

"She could be like the Qu, Biggs, and she needs to be sedated." He hitched his thumb in the direction if the white thing, and I noticed that it seemed extremely lethargic. There was no was they were going to do that to me.

"Blowpipe, then?" Biggs asked. Wedge nodded, and Biggs proceeded to load a dart into a tube. I didn't know what they meant about a blowpipe, but found out when Biggs lifted the tube to his lips. He blew, and I didn't realize it would shoot the dart at me until I felt it tear through the cloth in my shirt and pierce my skin. I gasped in pain, clasping the dart protruding from my arm. I felt extremely drowsy then, and before I knew it, had fallen fast asleep.

I guess someone shaking me brought me round again. I opened my eyes slowly, the bright light nearly blinding me. I sat up slowly, trying to get my bearings. It seemed like the world was spinning around me, and I immediately threw up. Someone swore beside me, and I felt them shift beside me. I felt dizzy and disoriented. Something wasn't right. It was taking far too long for me to focus my eyes. All I could see were blurs of color.

I felt someone touch my forehead with their hand, cool and comforting. "Her forehead and horn are hot," a boy's voice exclaimed. Nino?

"Reaction to drug, maybe? Quag not know." A white face filled my vision. The weird creature, I thought. "She don't focus eyes, I see."

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice cracking just above a whisper.

"You're on a slave cart," another voice answered. "Don't worry, it'll pass soon, I hope."

"Nino had same problem, but is all right now." Quag said.

"Nino?" I blurted out. "Where is he?"

"Right here, Hajime. You don't look so good. You're burning up, but because of all the sweat I couldn't tell until I touched your horn." Nino said. "You're skin's all cold and clammy unless I press my hand on it."

I felt weak, too weak, and for me it was a new experience. A new, bad experience.

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To Be Continued…

So, how'd you like my story? Like it so far? Don't like it? Review or flame, it matters not to me… Did I just sound like Yoda? Too much Star Wars, if you ask me. I saw the new movie yesterday, and ever since, talking like the green guy I have been. :P Oh, well, please review.

- Charbonne, The Other Writer


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